Is Culture Flipping unbalancing?

[Rommel2D]

Does culture influence citizen assimilation currently? Apart from borders, I believe the only influence culture plays is the victory condition, AI disposition in diplomacy, and number of foreign resistors in a city when captured...

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by Barinthus
A very broad definition of culture is pretty much everything that you use in your daily lives. #2 pencil is culture. Polo shirt is culture. Kleenex is culture. McDonalds is culture.

So, yes, pursuit of capitalist profit is acceptable as part of culture.

Feeling a little existential?

The most relevant defenition for culture I found in Webster's: "the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon man's capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations"

Your examples, as objects, are not culture (except maybe 'McDonalds' ). Culture is intangible, made up of ideas. Temples and Libraries contribute directly to culture, banks and factories do not (in the game, at least). In real life, the definition of culture can be streched to include economic and military forces, but in the game's terms, they're nearly distinct.

I don't know Mexican history very well, but in the middle of the 19th century, didn't they have a much more established religious foundation than the US had educational? Can a flip in the game go to the inferior cultural entity?

[Remulak]

I, for one, hated culture flipping in CIV III. It drove me crazy that I would lose my armies after a flip. I stopped playing CIV III because it annoyed me so much. I picked it up again after C3C put in the off button. Now I play it regularly with culture flip off.

[Barinthus]

Originally posted by Rommel2D
The most relevant defenition for culture I found in Webster's: "the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon man's capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations"

Your examples, as objects, are not culture (except maybe 'McDonalds' ). Culture is intangible, made up of ideas. Temples and Libraries contribute directly to culture, banks and factories do not (in the game, at least). In real life, the definition of culture can be streched to include economic and military forces, but in the game's terms, they're nearly distinct.

Webster's is not exactly the bible. According to one of top sociologist Ph.Ds who taught my class, those are relevant examples. And before you or someone else say so, yes I know he's not God. However since I paid through my nose for my tuition, I'm more inclinced to accept his version of culture

For instance, did Sumerians have #2 pencil? No. It wasn't part of their daily lives since it wasn't invented yet. However in 60s' people used those on a regular and daily basis.

Today I can barely remember the last time I used #2 pencil. I don't even write much anymore - I type instead. That is part of my life. The tendency to type instead of writing is so important in my life it affects other aspects of my life. Such as letters - I rarely write love letters. Instead, I instant message love notes or send off a steamy email to the object of my heart's affection (lust?).

On the other hand #2 pencil plays an important role in Kenyans living in urban areas since computers are not that vastly available like they are in the West.

I'm sure there are still areas on Earth where people don't use #2 pencil at all, it does not play a role in their daily lives. Instead, they rely upon memory or some other methods of keeping records.

#2 pencil is a tool. Your life is shaped partially by tools you use or not use. This has an impact on what most of us envision what culture means.

Take for instance, civilizations that use iron as opposite to those who only have bronze or even merely wood and rocks as their tools.

[Barinthus]

Originally posted by Jaybe
It is only Culture FLIPPING that you can turn off, Bar.

Ahh yes that's right. My brains have been scattered lately with what's going at work and stuff like that. Doh!

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by Rommel2D

Feeling a little existential?

The most relevant defenition for culture I found in Webster's: "the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon man's capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations"

Your examples, as objects, are not culture (except maybe 'McDonalds' ). Culture is intangible, made up of ideas. Temples and Libraries contribute directly to culture, banks and factories do not (in the game, at least). In real life, the definition of culture can be streched to include economic and military forces, but in the game's terms, they're nearly distinct.

I don't know Mexican history very well, but in the middle of the 19th century, didn't they have a much more established religious foundation than the US had educational? Can a flip in the game go to the inferior cultural entity?

Mexico did not gain its independence until the 1820's where as the US gained its independence in 1783. I suspect that the US would have had a slight culture lead in the 1830's but not a significant one. The Mexican capital was also closer to Texas than Washington. The only way that Texas could have flipped is if the cities had a 2-1 ratio of Texacanos (americans) as related to Mexicans (as was historically the case).

The main reason that Culure flipping is so inaccurate in Civ III is that it fails to consider migration and immigration of large amounts of people throught history. Would Rome had fallen if the Goths had not been forced out of their homeland by the Huns? Would America had been as powerful if it had not accepted the flood of immigrants during the late 1800's and early twentieth century? Issues like these are lacking in civ III.

I know that there are some that say that this is just a game, but to me a game based on history should be as in depth as possible. Issues that arise that make a feature act in absurd manners (such as CF's) should be fixed and not just disabled to appease the discontent.

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by Barinthus
Webster's is not exactly the bible.

I tied in the Webster definition to game specifics with the example of Libraries vs banks; the game produces culture through improvements that deal with ideas, not those that produce material(istic) products. A pencil is a product of culture, not culture in and of itself. The same culture that produces/uses a pencil in one situation may use a piece of chalk or a plastic stick on a PDA under different circumstances. Congruently, the same tool can be used by different cultures to different ends.

Taken to an extreme, the whole media/message dichotomy breaks down, but when looking for strange attractors that explain the phenomena we refer to as culture, I think material elements related to economic and military forces lie well into the periphery.

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber
Mexico did not gain its independence until the 1820's where as the US gained its independence in 1783. I suspect that the US would have had a slight culture lead in the 1830's but not a significant one. The Mexican capital was also closer to Texas than Washington. The only way that Texas could have flipped is if the cities had a 2-1 ratio of Texacanos (americans) as related to Mexicans (as was historically the case).

The main reason that Culure flipping is so inaccurate in Civ III is that it fails to consider migration and immigration of large amounts of people throught history.

Another area the game fails to address is splinter revolutions that give rise to new civilizations. I was considering that mexico's cultural institutions had been long established before their revolution and continued to convey a greater culture, although your view that the governmental 'break' disrupted this has much merit...

How should Culture flipping relate to population migration?

[Prot]

Originally posted by Jaybe
The other "fact" is that Firaxis was right all along -- Coracle is the one that was wrong (easy for ME to say, I eventually put him on my ignore list).

Firaxis wanted it simple for my tastes, but as non-Firaxis options:
If civs are at war: Some of the units caught in the flipping city should have a chance of defecting, even if it means going to a lower-cultured civ (sympathy towards the "oppressed", etc.). They would defect complete with their equipment, regardless of tech comparison. Some units might be destroyed in the flip, others damaged and placed (I-don't-know-where).

SO, if Democracy CivA is attacked by Communist CivB, has cities razed by Communists, has workers executed by the millions by them, but then eventually beats them back to their own native cities, are you saying that the Democratic troops would be "sympathetic"?

[Prot]

Originally posted by Shogun Gunner


I mean, take the Zulus for example. They represent all the unique African tribes and cultures (excepting Eygpt)

You forgot Carthage, they were African, just of a more Jewish variety

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Prot
SO, if Democracy CivA is attacked by Communist CivB, has cities razed by Communists, has workers executed by the millions by them, but then eventually beats them back to their own native cities, are you saying that the Democratic troops would be "sympathetic"?

Perhaps, although the GAME MECHANISM could be rationalized in other ways, such as through subterfuge the units are disarmed and the equipment taken over by "loyal" communists.
Sometimes it helps to stretch your imagination to figure out how the 'bleep' something could possibly have happened. Perhaps your Communist CivB is not your stereotypical soviet-style government. The stock Civ3 Communist government isn't even xenophobic as the Fascist government is, which I think is inappropriate (so I changed it).

Rambling on ...,
Culture is totally subjective. A member of the proletariat raised and educated under the communist system might believe their system and culture far superior to any bourgeoisie society, just as most any western European or American would think the totally opposite. Victorian English would commonly look with disdain upon Egyptian or Indian contemporaries, but there would be exceptions who would respect them as individuals or even "go native."